insidious effects that could come from this Act would be future funding cuts either to tribal programs or BIA, IHS budgeting, as a result of tribal contracting. Mr. BEGAY. I would like to make note of Chief John Crowe's letter to you which is a part of our testimony. I would like to include that Senator ABOUREZK. It can go in the record. [The letter follows:] Senator JAMES ABOUREZK, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR ABOUREZK: This letter is prompted by a considerable degree of concern regarding the possible consequences of Public Law 93-638. I feel that the implementation of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act will disrupt, impede and/or negate a number of successful and stable programs which are currently in operation. Specifically, The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is opposed to the emphasis which Public Law 93-638 places on the establishment of contracting services, and we urge you to assist us in seeing that necessary provisions are made for the protection of Indian Tribes who are opposed to the usage of contracting. My opposition is based on the following grounds: 1. Contrary to the proposed objective of futhering "the self-determination of Indian communities," Public Law 93-638 will encourage the development of contracting services, a consequence which could have disastrous results for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. 2. Public Law 93–638 does not make adequate provisions for the future security of detailed Federal employees. Specifically, the Act stipulates that such employees "may be detailed to a tribe or a tribal organization for two years (renewable for up to two more years)." This indicates that Public Law 93-638 considers four years to be the maximum length of time for the use of detailed employees. What becomes of these employees after four years? 3. Considering the emphasis and "encouragement" placed on the use of contracting services by Public Law 93-638, it seems logical to anticipate the eventual development of a funding process which gives priority consideration to tribes seeking funds for contracting services. Such a process would be singularly unfair to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Traditionally, we have tended to avoid contracting due to the significant number of disadvantages involved (tribal politics, complexities of annual funding, auditing, and reporting procedures). 4. Public Law 93-638 would result in significant changes in our present organizational structure and the duties and responsibilities of our personnel. We feel that such changes would produce an excessive degree of inefficiency, dissatisfaction and instability. Certainly, there are a number of other reasons for our opposition to Public Law 93-638; however, the aforementioned characteristics embody our major dissatisfactions. In addition, we realize that a total rejection of all goals, objectives and potential benefits contained in this Act is unrealistic. However, we do feel that Public Law 93-638 requires extensive revision, and we request your support in opposing its implementation. We desire a comprehensive evaluation of Public Law 93-638, and a careful consideration of specific negative consequences on individual Indian tribes, bands or groups. In its present form, this Act is not in the best interest of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and we request the right to be given proper consideration. Sincerely, JOHN A. CROWE, Principal Chief, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Senator ABOUREZK. The next panel is the National Indian Education Association, Mr. Ken Ross, John Tiger, Leland Bordeaux, and Dorothy Small. STATEMENT OF JOHN TIGER, ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INDIAN EDUCATION ASSOCIATION Mr. TIGER. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Let me apologize for Ken Ross who is the chairman of the board of directors. He called late last night and is not able to be with us this morning, but has a statement to be inserted in the record. I should also say that Mrs. Helen Scheirbeck who is first vice president will be submitting additional testimony. [The statement from Mrs. Scheirbeck was not received.] Mr. TIGER. We have a combined statement from NIEA and at this point, we will discuss some of the more salient points and not get into actual reading of the testimony here. Mr. Chairman, my name is John Tiger and I am acting executive director of the National Indian Education Association. Let me introduce the other members of the panel, Dorothy Small and Leland Bordeaux. Mr. Chairman, we thank you for the opportunity to participate in these hearings and we are certain that our NIEA constituency will be most interested in the outcome of these activities today. We will discuss some of the major issues of Public Law 93-638 regulations but we would be remiss if we did not have a discussion on what these regulations will mean to our educational system in our local communities. As you might guess, we will not be discussing any of the IHS regulations since we are chiefly interested in Indian education. Let me say to begin with that it seems like the general contracting section 401 of the regulations addressing the Snyder and Johnson O'Malley Act, it would seem to us that the area directors have far too much signoff or control authority of contracting as such. We have suggestions to alleviate the problem that we see with area directors gaining too much control through these regulations. It would seem that the central office can only review contract applications when two or more area offices have jurisdiction over a single tribe for organizations' applications. While it may be true that the Secretary of the Interior can refuse to contract for contracts detrimental to the tribe and also when trust resources are threatened, we know that recently on the northern Cheyenne reservation the subject of coal leasing almost led to disaster and this was because the leasing done at the area director level, Commissioner stepped in far too late. We recommend that a central contracting authority for education programs be established at the central office. I think that the contracts could be awarded on a more equitable basis. It would be nearer the budget functions of the Bureau, closer cooperation could be maintained throughout all parts of Indian country because of the equal distribution of the program's funds. This is quite impossible under the present set of regulations. I think we have grown to see that the Albuquerque Education Office has unofficially gained control of many of the BIA educational programs. The JOM signoff rests with the area director and at the same time, approval for school construction rests back with the central office. We think that this system is fragmented and does not reflect good management. We think a central contracting authority would help alleviate this situation. We also think that an ongoing evaluation system should be set in motion in education programs and contracting. There is no adequate method for this at the present. We recommend through regular evaluation, faulty programs at the community level would not be compounded during the course of the contracting. Monitoring of these programs would help steer the Indian education programs in the right direction resulting in improvement of Indian education as a whole. We think also that if contracting was done at a central office, there would be less time in getting education programs operational. Under the present regulations, I think that we can see that this is a lengthy process, particularly when the area office declines to enter into an education program or contract at the local level. Now, Miss Small has something to say about what I mentioned earlier, the unofficial power that the Albuquerque area office has been able to garner over the past few months. STATEMENT OF DOROTHY SMALL, BOARD MEMBER, NATIONAL INDIAN EDUCATION ASSOCIATION Miss SMALL. Mr. Chairman, I am really happy to be here to participate in these hearings. What Mr. Tiger said about the Albuquerque area office, we did have an experience this past fall. We had information around the first part of September that they said they were not going to fund us. Then, in our reservation, they were really upset over it because the school was not going to be funded; they were going to cut us. Then we got hold of our resource person who started looking into this. Then we found out that the Albuquerque office and area office were the ones responsible to release our funds for JOM. At the same time, the BIA told our representative that they had to cut us down because we had a public school on our reservation. Therefore, our funds were cut down and this is what our people are concerned about. If we go through a contract with JOM fundings and they will be cutting us down and that's where the problem lies right now. In order to get moneys for our schools on the Indian reservations is what we are concerned about. The experience we have, the area office instead of helping Indian people to educate their children, they keep fighting our tribal groups. This is where the problem lies right now so they really have a concern, if we have to go through a contract, and this is where the problem will lie with the BIA; they keep cutting the funding and this is what the problems are. Mr. TIGER. Mr. Chairman, to continue, we have some doubts about the JOM distribution formula as in subpart C, paragraph 4, of 3.31. Although we might be technical in suggesting that, does anyone know what the mechanics are in arriving at the JOM distribution formula? We note that in the regulations it states that JOM moneys are going to be distributed among the States on a substantially equal basis. It appears that with these statements in mind, why must JOM contractors be subject to the lengthy application process and resulting volumes of paper called for in the regulation? We think that these are unnecessary. They are simply bureaucratic roadblocks. We would like to address another problem in the JOM regulations. We think that those members of the school board must be one-fourth degree Indian blood as is required of the students that are governed by this school board. We have one more item to address and that is the school construction moneys, $35 million in the appropriations is woefully inadequate. The BIA now has a backlog of schools construction; $35 million simply won't do the job. At this point, I would like Mr. Leland Bordeaux to comment on the educational portion of Public Law 93-638. STATEMENT OF LELAND BORDEAUX, BOARD MEMBER, NATIONAL INDIAN EDUCATION ASSOCIATION Mr. BORDEAUX. Mr. Chairman, I would like to address myself to the issue that was brought up and what it means to those of us at the local level when we deal with any set of rules and regulations. I guess for a long time, people have been addressing the fact that there should be a central contracting office as opposed to the several offices that there are now. For us who are trying to deal with the students, I am the superintendent of the St. Francis Indian School on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. I think there are several 60-day provisions within the rules and regulations that would leave a school up in the air for as much as half a year, 6 months, not knowing whether funds were coming in or not. This has been typical of my experience in the administration of a school, that there is never in these Indian programs a way to know what next year's funding will be until 2 days before school starts sometimes. I think the amounts of money that are involved, and I think with the different offices, it makes competition for these funds great and I think there is always a chance that a disproportionate amount can end up in any one given area. Again, a central office, we felt, would eliminate that. I would like to say one final thing and I think it is attached-this was a letter written by Frank La Pointe, a cohort of mine at St. Francis Indian School. He is executive director for the school board. It has several recommendations, one of which he says possibly this committee should direct somebody to take these 58 pages of rules and regulations and reduce them to 10 within the next 10 days. I realize that is a-I shouldn't be saying that probably but that's the way it is back home. Senator ABOUREZK. Why not? Mr. BORDEAUX. I think that it's something like this cannot be done, I would probably recommend that this particular bill, 93-638 not be given the short title, the Indian Self-Determination Act. As such, it isn't. Mr. TIGER. Mr. Chairman, to wind up here, we note that all of the contracting regulations also have a provision for Indian preference and I think we can recall some months ago when the Bureau of Indian Affairs squirmed under the question of preference and I think the honorable chairman was at that session some time ago. We asked them if they would establish any kind of policy on Indian preference and at that point they had not. We wondered if at this point, the committee might find out if they have any kind of Indian preference policy at this date. One last point, we note under the Freedom of Information Act pointed out in the regulations, they have as confidential information, |